Explore Essays and memoir
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Orion’s Belt
Cristhiano Aguiar
‘Well, if the Bible, Greek tragedies and Star Wars have taught me something it’s that anything of great importance will eventually come in threes.’
When Did I Become a Writer?
Mia Couto
‘I am often asked when I became a writer, and I have taken to not rushing my answer.’
Laparotomy
Alexandra Lucas Coelho
‘At forty, I think the world leads to the body. Besides, laid out on a stretcher, you are your only home’ .
First Sentence: Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich
‘We live in these places out of necessity, lucky to have them out of the terrible explosion of humanity.’
Thing with Feathers that Perches in the Soul
Anthony Doerr
‘It has to be love, doesn’t it? In however many of its infinite permutations?’
Toh EnJoe | First Sentence
Toh EnJoe
‘I think that the thing called thought can be viewed as rooted in the very real phenomenon of neurons firing.’
Printable
Toh EnJoe
‘Which is scarier: that the past could actually change or that you could just think it did?’
Maruti 800
Rana Dasgupta
‘Like a tiny old woman surrounded by strapping grandsons, the Maruti 800 was in fact the progenitor of all that new, muscular, vehicular variety.’
Heart and Soul in Every Stitch
Tash Aw
‘Where wealth and technology go, culture quickly follows, and soon it became acceptable, even desirable, to express an interest in Japan beyond the mere practicality offered by its products.’
My Avant-Garde Education
Bernard Cooper
‘My response to art was quick, metabolic and revelatory, while my response to sex was a muddle of delayed reactions and missed libidinal signals.’